7 Minors Nabbed for Anti-Arab Graffiti, Spitting at Priest

Four of the minors allegedly sprayed graffiti at a construction site near Jerusalem. Three other have been released.

By AFP and Arutz Sheva staff

First Publish: 5/5/2014, 12:41 PM

'Price tag' in Ein Aluza

Flash 90

Seven Jewish minors have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in “racist acts” and vandalism, police said on Monday.

Four of the minors, who are between the ages of 13 and 15, are suspected of spraying anti-Arab graffiti at a building site by an Arab village west of Jerusalem on Sunday, spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Another three are young women who were arrested near Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday for spitting at a priest. In their bags, police found Israeli flags with Hebrew slogans on them, including the words "revenge" and "price tag," she said, without giving their ages.

All seven suspects are to be brought before a judge on Monday to extend their remand in custody, Samri said. The judge subsequently released the young women who are suspects in the spitting, forbidding them from approaching the Mount Zion area.

On Sunday, a Jerusalem court extended by three days the detention of a man from the community of Yitzhar who was arrested last week with his wife over an arson attack on an Israeli mosque last month, public radio said. The wife was released Friday. The couple's lawyer said that police initially thought the couple's car was used by their son to carry out a vandalism attack in Umm el Fahm, adding that the police now know his client is innocent, but are keeping him in jail for "show" purposes.

Last week, the US State Department for the first time included mention of "price tag" attacks in its global report on terror, saying such incidents were "largely unprosecuted".

On Sunday, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she would back the idea of defining such acts as "terrorism".